Some small portions of unidentified human remains recovered from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pa., were incinerated and ultimately dumped in a landfill, the Defense Department acknowledged Tuesday.

It was the first time that the Pentagon has said that some remains of Sept. 11 victims taken to the Dover Air Force Base mortuary later ended up in a landfill.

In November, The Washington Post first disclosed that the Dover mortuary for years had disposed of incinerated portions of remains of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in a Virginia landfill. The practice involved unidentified or unclaimed body parts; it was not made known to troops’ family members.The Air Force later admitted that it had dumped the incinerated partial remains of at least 274 service members in the landfill between 2003 and 2008, when the practice ended. At the time, Air Force officials said their records only went back to 2003 and that they did not know when the landfill dumping began.On Tuesday, a new Defense Department review of the mortuary operations at Dover revealed that “several portions of remains” recovered from the Sept. 11 attacks at the Pentagon and at Shanksville also ended up in a landfill. ::snipping2::Those remains were cremated first, but then handed over to a “biomedical waste disposal contractor,” according to Abizaid’s report. Under an arrangement with the Air Force, the contractor transported bags of the medical waste for incineration.

Dover mortuary officials assumed at the time that “after final incineration, nothing remained,” Abizaid’s report stated. In fact, there was still residual material left over from the incineration, which the contractor then took to a landfill.

The mortuary changed its policy in 2008 and since then has buried unclaimed or unidentified cremated remains at sea.

At a news conference, Abizaid said he could not quantify how many remains of Sept. 11 victims were disposed of in a landfill. He said his panel was directed to examine current operations at the Dover mortuary and make recommendations for improvements, not investigate past problems.At a news conference, Abizaid said he could not quantify how many remains of Sept. 11 victims were disposed of in a landfill. He said his panel was directed to examine current operations at the Dover mortuary and make recommendations for improvements, not investigate past problems.

“You’ll have to ask those questions elsewhere,” he said when reporters pressed him to elaborate on how the remains of Sept. 11 victims were handled, as well as other incidents of malfeasance at Dover that were flagged in his report. “What we didn’t do was go back and take a detailed look at the records to see what went on.”

Still, an appendix to Abizaid’s report lists several previously undisclosed incidents of mismanagement, mishandled body parts and other botched cases at the Dover mortuary, dating back for a decade.

In January 2008, the Air Force paid a $25,000 settlement to the unidentified widow of a Marine “for mental anguish and medical costs due to loss of personal effects” that were “inadvertently destroyed” along with the Marine’s remains.

Separately, in July 2006, group remains from four military personnel who died in an airplane crash were “cremated and disposed of as medical waste rather than being interred in group burial.” Abizaid’s report blamed “poor communication” among branches of the military but did not give details.

In September 2005, an Air Force investigation found that “human remains were mis-routed in a fashion constituting dereliction of duty,” according to the report, which again did not give details. ::snipping2::(2 Pages)

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::snipping2::A separate investigation conducted by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel also alleged last month that the Air Force had illegally retaliated against four whistleblowers who had spoken out against incidents of misconduct at the mortuary.

In a statement Tuesday, Panetta made no specific mention of the new findings about the victims of Sept. 11 detailed in the report.

“My continuing promise to all the families of our fallen heroes is that every step will be taken to protect the honor and respect that their loved ones richly deserve,” the defense secretary said. “Having been to Dover, I consider this a sacred place with a sacred responsibility. We will ensure that we continue to meet our responsibility to deliver the greatest respect and reverence to our fallen heroes. We can do no less.”

The “gross mismanagement” and mishandling of bodies at the mortuary is the result of supervision and oversight problems, along with a host of other issues, the 86-page report said, offering a number of recommendations aimed at fixing the the problems.

« Last Edit: February 28, 2012, 02:43:48 PM by MuffyBee »

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" Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." - Daniel Moynihan

he Pentagon scrambled Wednesday to try to determine how many remains of victims from the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings were incinerated and dumped in a landfill. Senior officials admitted they were caught flat-footed by the revelation and pledged to investigate.

Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, the Air Force chief of staff, said that contrary to a Pentagon report released Tuesday, it did not appear that unidentified remains of victims of the United Airlines Flight 93 crash in Shanksville, Pa., were disposed of in a landfill, “as best we can tell.” “This is something we need to nail down,” he said.

Schwartz said the practice was limited to the unidentified, partial remains of people who perished when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. He said he could not quantify how many remains were handled in that manner.

But he cited a Pentagon memo from March 2002 directing the military to incinerate “fragmented remains” that had been mixed with “non-biological materials” recovered from the crash site. Other unidentified remains from the Pentagon were cremated and interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

The memo, written by David S.C. Chu, the undersecretary of defense for personnel at the time, did not specify that the incinerated remains be taken to a landfill. Chu did not respond to messages seeking comment.More...Video at Link

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" Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." - Daniel Moynihan

There are no remains underneath the headstone at Arlington National Cemetery erected in memory of four people killed in the Jan. 10, 2006, crash of a Navy T-39 Sabreliner training jet.

That’s because the Air Force sent the cremated remains that were supposed to be buried there to a Virginia landfill, along with remains of seven Sept. 11 victims and those of hundreds of other service members.

The news came in a report made public late last month by an independent Defense Department panel investigating the growing scandal stemming from management problems at the Dover Air Force Base, Del., military mortuary. ::snipping2::

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" Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." - Daniel Moynihan